Collective Sanctions¶

Daryl J. Levinson (2003). Collective Sanctions. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 56, No. 2. Stanford Law Review.


Type	journal article
Scope	Comparative and methods
Method	theoretical or conceptual
Period studied	Ancient/medieval–2003
Regions	United States, Medieval England and Iceland, Global (comparative)
Themes	sanctions divestment, comparative theory, politics ideology elections, origins segregation
Citation key	`levinson2003`

Argument¶

Levinson argues that collective sanctions (punishing groups for individuals' wrongdoing) need not rest on racialist or communal ideas of group responsibility. They are better understood functionally, as delegated deterrence: a sanctioner targets a group because the group can monitor and control its members more cheaply than an outsider can. He builds an informal model in which the efficacy of collective sanctions depends on group solidarity, and in which the sanctions themselves build solidarity. They can also produce excessive control, deviant group goals and changes in group composition. He applies the model to a range of cases, including international sanctions, where he predicts they work only if the target population can control its leaders.

Evidence and method¶

Secondary literature in legal theory, anthropology, economics and history. Illustrative cases include the Brownsville affair, frankpledge, the Icelandic feud, Superfund, the Yonkers contempt sanctions, the Grameen Bank, Nazi reprisals, and Iraq and Cuba sanctions. No original archival data or fieldwork.

Findings¶

Core thesis: groups are sanctioned as a means of delegating deterrence, not because they are collectively guilty. (p. 5)

Group members might be punished not because they are deemed collectively responsible for wrongdoing but simply because they are in an advantageous position to identify, monitor, and control responsible individuals
Collective sanctions both exploit and create group solidarity. (p. 7)

In short, collective sanctions not only leverage but also build group solidarity.
The success of international sanctions is predicted to depend on the target state's internal political structure. (p. 60)

The theory of collective sanctions should lead us to predict that international sanctions will be more effective when targeted at states that are democratic or especially vulnerable to non-democratic regime change
The international sanctions literature neglects the mechanism linking economic distress to political change in the target state. (p. 60)

This seems like a fairly obvious point, but it gets surprisingly little attention in the literature on international sanctions.
Sanctions against Iraq and Cuba are cited as failures where leaders insulated themselves from popular pressure. (p. 61)

Where leaders can insulate themselves from both the economic costs of sanctions and the political costs that might stem from the suffering of their populations, there is little reason to expect that international sanctions will change their behavior.
Sanctions can be re-aimed at politically efficacious groups, including multinational corporations, a strategy akin to vicarious liability. (p. 62)

Another alternative, akin to vicarious liability, is to aim sanctions more precisely at politically efficacious interest groups or entities within the target state.
Sanctions may backfire by generating nationalist backlash. (p. 63)

Sanctions that create nationalist backlash may turn out to be not just ineffective but actually counterproductive as a tool of foreign policy.
Collective reprisals can strengthen solidarity and resistance rather than deterring it, as in the Algerian case. (p. 66)

Collective punishment pulls otherwise acquiescent bystanders into the rebellion by giving them a personal stake in defeating or evading the sanctioner.
Yonkers shows collective sanctions leveraging constituents' votes where sanctions on individual officials failed. (p. 57)

Collective sanctions against the city worked because they effectively leveraged group-level sanctions, in the form of the expected votes of constituents, against the holdout city council members.